


fakeout

by shamnesiac



Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man (Comicverse), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-07 15:36:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21460390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shamnesiac/pseuds/shamnesiac
Summary: Peter Parker has himself hate Wade Wilson, because it's easier than falling in love with him. That is, until he catches Wade in the bedroom.
Relationships: Peter Parker/Wade Wilson
Comments: 68
Kudos: 170





	1. Chapter 1

It’s been about two weeks since Wade Wilson, renowned killer of too-many hundred and current retainer of the infamous “Deadpool” moniker, has staked claim on a single bedchamber within Stark Tower. In that brief allotment of time, he has managed to steal 7 boxes of takeout from the kitchen, regularly forgotten to flush the toilet, and cause at least 2 biochemical breaches in the lab sectors downstairs. He also snores profusely, rarely wears deodorant, takes hour-long showers with his Whitney Houston playlist on full blast, and dons every other grating vice he’s guilty of like some god-given badge of honor. His area of effect extends throughout Stark Tower’s entirety like a bad smell, and the sole reason he  _ hasn’t  _ been booted off the premises is because he hasn’t gone under his usual expectations (which are just around six-feet-deep levels of low). 

“Besides,” Banner had said after the first containment breach (an amplified bremelanotide gas), “If he knows he’s pushing our buttons, he’s just going to do it more. In  _ or _ out of the tower.” 

Which is great advice and all, but Wade Wilson has  _ also _ been Peter Parker’s personal neighbor for two weeks, and he’s pretty sure he’s going to lose his mind. 

_ Out of every room, and he had to choose the one right next to me!  _ is a thought that crosses his mind more than it probably should, followed by an even more unnaturally common  _ of course he would, over half the things he does are just to annoy me.  _ Then there’s a smidgen of level-minded consolidation, an attempt to calm down, and then a grand interception by Wade himself, in all his needling glory, restarting the cycle all over again. He’s had bothersome neighbors before, but nothing has ever come close to the sheer exasperation he feels when he hears  _ Hollaback Girl  _ blaring at 6 in the morning. 

It’s not even that Wade’s entirely bad, either- Peter’s usually able to keep him in check. The jokes, the pet names, the unprecedented amounts of bloodshed? He can handle that, he can alleviate that. Hell, he’s the one that spearheaded Wade gaining (consensual) residence to Stark Tower in the first place (even though it may have been out of pity). He can’t say he doesn’t care, even with how unimaginably  _ vexatious  _ he can be, but Peter needs a recovery period (preferably several hours)- the one thing that’s now been entirely voided. It’s a complete lack of space, a constant stream of punchlines and invisible audiences and touching-touching-touching that has his nerves bunched up to one big  _ leave me alone.  _ One annoying, stomach-knotting quip comes directly after the next, again and again, tantalizing without refractory. He just came here to tinker with his suit, work out some bugs, and now he’s starting to think he’d prefer a Trojan horse over another night of unwarranted Deadpool shenanigans. He hasn’t felt this strung-up in years, not since high school, and by this point he can’t even lose his mind in the calculus without an impromptu bouts of annoyance, or bemusement, or awkward disposition.

It’s a mystery to him why he hasn’t thrown in the towel by this point. Stubbornness? Masochism? He can’t tell. Maybe he doesn’t want to tell.

All he  _ can  _ tell right now, sitting at a desk in the corner of his cleanly Stark-issued bedroom, is that he needs to find out how to alleviate the drift on his web-shooter shots. Except it’s 3 in the morning, his brain feels like cotton, and nothing makes sense- it would be a miracle for him to manage one cohesive equation. He prays Wade will stay asleep- no- that Wade has gone to bed in the first place, because this is the first actual shot he has at actually working on the tech. Peter knows the quiet won’t permeate in the morning, intercepted as soon as Wade’s eyes shutter their way open, and he knows this is the only shift he can operate functionally without the “big DP” causing another tower-wide biohazard and severing all attempts of suit improvement. He’s impatient, he’s antsy, he doesn’t want to wait for Wade to get kicked from the Tower just so he can work on his suit, but he doesn’t know how much longer he can handle this.

_ Is it possible to care about someone you also think is the human embodiment of a dumpster fire?  _ Peter wonders (because he does, and it’s true), just as he starts to hear whimpering. 

_ Whimpering and grunting.  _

Suddenly, he cares about Wade a little less.

His resolve dissipates in an instant, and he ditches his graph paper and pencils in favor of wholly abandoning his chair, standing up, and readying himself for a visit to that next-room-over. 

Peter can handle Wade when he’s on patrol, when he’s got his mask and web-shooters on. He’s forced himself into bitter numberness at every cheesy nickname in the pseud-bible, to the raspy laughter, the bloodstained leather and the dimwitted expressions. And somehow,  _ somehow,  _ he still manages to give a shit about Wade through it all, through that forced sort of apathy. It’s tolerance, it’s so much tolerance (and repression), it’s being a decent human being at the bare minimum! But this is too much, and enough is enough, and he’s really starting to  _ hate  _ Wade Winston Wilson just as much as he did when he first met him, fuck, maybe even more. He’s been such a  _ nuisance  _ and Peter can’t get him out of his head and he despises it so, so much, and-

And it really is hard to convince yourself that  _ I can’t get you out of my head  _ derives from hatred, and that that the sick, wrenching feeling in his gut is genuine acrimony and not something so much worse. The shit Wade pulls  _ needs _ to be furiously aggravating, because the alternative would be… well, it wouldn’t be pleasant, but it  _ would _ be one-ended, and sweaty, and awkward, and would result in too many cold showers to name, too many for Peter to tolerate without going hypothermic. So he grits his teeth and finds it abhorrent, instead, because repressing and hating it is so much easier. 

Repressing, and hating, and readying to shout at Wade at 3 in the morning because he’s whimpering and grunting (which can only mean one thing, and that thing will stick in the back of Peter’s mind forever if he doesn’t stop it).  _ _ He yanks his mask on, storms with heavy feet to that next-room-over, and grabs the door handle so hard he can hear it creak. He holds the phrase “ _ Would you stop jerking off at 3 in the morning? _ ” tight on his tongue, ready to spit in the most admonishing voice he can culminate with his perpetually squeaky vocal chords. 

Then the door swings open. 

And he sure as hell isn’t “jerking off”, as Peter had so eloquently put it. Not even close. 

The light from the hallway pools, and slices a single firm tangent of visibility against the bedspread, revealing the scene more than clearly enough for Peter to see. And oh, does he see. 

Peter sees Wade tangled in the sheets, asleep, writhing ever so slightly in his (Spider-Man themed) boxer briefs and mask. His face is upturned and his expression, underneath the scrappy piece of facial covering he chooses to sleep with, is crinkled and harsh- pained, even. His hands are mottled fists dug into the blankets, wrenched so tightly his knuckles have whitened. Whenever he moves, it’s a frantic sort of twitch, something so skittish that it looks unnatural being performed on the broad plateaus and angles of Wade’s musculature. The various array of noises he’s been making, Peter realizes with a sharp pang of shame and guilt, haven’t been of pleasure, nor even remotely happy. Wade Wilson is having a nightmare, one so vile and gruesome that it’s making  _ him  _ sniffle out and whine like some helpless, lame animal. Peter can see the fear and sadness woven into his expression, unconsciousness wrangling the emotions forwards to full display, mask doing little to hide the grooves and knitted furrows. It’s almost terrifying, really, the dichotomy between how ruthless and unkempt he usually seems, and how fragile he looks now. 

Peter almost doesn’t want to stir him from the dream, fearful that doing so might just end in tears (and dear god, he doesn’t even want to imagine Deadpool crying for  _ real).  _ But then again, it’s probably a better idea than simply leaving him there to duke it out in the nightmare realm, so he drifts cautiously closer, where he can see each individual crease and tremor in saddening definition. Any snip or retort he once had cauldronated at the ready is now long dead and abandoned, and his voice is nothing more than a ginger, night-worn croak when he says “Hey, wake up, man,” and lays a palm to Wade’s shoulder. 

The reaction is instantaneous and, quite frankly, kind of scary. 

Wade’s entire upper half jolts up from the bed, the white-out cloth cuts of his eyes going theatrically wide. His hands lift, as if to defend himself, though he (thankfully) refrains from sucker-punching Peter outright. Instead, he gives a low noise, one of bemusement, that comes from the base of his throat and is just off-kilter enough that it isn’t a growl. His gaze swaps from the Spider-Skulker at the foot of his bed, over to the rest of the room, inspecting, reviewing. A brief scan of what’s illuminated enough to see must suffice in bringing Wade back to reality, because after a moment or two, his hands fall back to his sides and his expression sinks. All except for his gaze, which merely zeroes in on Peter, and narrows to a conflicted squint.

Peter suddenly feels very out of place, an intruder not only to a room but someone’s life, too. Bearing witness to that sort of vulnerability, encroaching abruptly and baselessly- it’s an invasion of privacy without disregard, something Peter cringes at amounting to. It’s an even more flimsy infringement when he remembers  _ whose  _ life he’s meddling with and witnessing: Wade Wilson’s. Deadpool. The guy with over two dozen personalities rattling in his cranium, the guy who  _ wears a mask in his sleep because he can’t stand his own face _ . Someone who would sulk himself to sleep in a Taco Bell if he knew someone was watching him express a single smidgen of weakness, unintentional or not. It doesn’t matter what the bad dream consists of, that’s just the type of person Wade had always been. Vigilant, open to his experiences but not the emotions associated. Guilt wells like sharp bile in Peter’s throat, thick and venomous, and shame pools into every fiber of his reddening face. He opens his mouth, then, so he can try stammering out some humiliating apology (“Sorry I broke into your room, I thought that awful nightmare you were having was just an unhinged masturbation period!”), but Wade manages to beat him to the punch. 

“Hi, snookums, what’s the break-and-entry for?” 

The voice he speaks in sounds nothing like those throaty grunts and choke-ups Peter had heard earlier. It’s more eloquent, more intact, the layers of husky scar tissue breaking his throat hidden over copious amounts of charisma and cheek. It feels like an audible shift of that tacky give-no-shits persona getting slung on, which is actually… really sad. Peter tries not to mull on it for too long, though, because he’s still got to fumble for an excuse why he’s here, and Wade looks too befuddled to be feeling very patient. 

Now, Peter doesn’t like to fib when he feels it unnecessary, but Wade was so hasty to brush that nightmare under the covers that mistaking it in a masturbatory allegation would drive him straight sullen. And though Peter dislikes it, he’s also relatively good at it, because 10 years and counting of undercover heroism is pretty goddamn difficult to conceal. Besides, an apology would latch like a leech on both their consciences, stinging and wriggling- Wade’s not sensitive, per se, but these types of things bring grandiose backlash. Hit a soft spot, drive home an insecurity with a trust that Wade doesn’t even give himself, and suddenly he’s all gags and flip-offs with no substance to speak of. When he feels as though a line has been crossed, and you’ve seen too much of him, it’s back to square one. It’s happened before- neither of them need it, and neither of them want it. 

And so, instead of breaking that boundary once more, Peter says what he needs to with the nonchalance and sharp indifference he always uses when talking to Wade: “I was just looking for a screwdriver. I thought it might’ve been in here.”

Wade’s expression knits again. First it’s thoughtful, then petulant and accusatory, “You think I took it?” he asks, and it’s hard to tell whether or not he’s legitimately hurt about the blame, since there was never any screwdriver to find in the first place, and there’s no logical way for Wade to be guilty. 

Still, Peter pushes on, swallowing remorse both old and fresh for a more abrasive pitch, “You take my stuff all the time.” 

“Only the good stuff,” Wade retorts, and Peter can see the way his lip juts out under the leather. Thirty years old, and he never unlearned how to pout. He wants to call it childish and embarrassing. Key word: wants. Nonetheless, Wade goes on, with all the confidence of a model. “I wouldn’t do unsavory things to a screwdriver.” 

A small part of Peter wants to ask what goddamn “unsavory things” has he been doing to all the junk Wade has  _ actually  _ stolen. The rest of him protests so vehemently that the urge is boxed and burned in less than a second. Instead, he queries a more sanely, “So you don’t have it?” and crosses his arms midway through for a more uptight delivery. 

Wade rumbles disapproval, rubbing the heel of his hand into one whited eye. “Don’t need no Spidey-screw,” he says flatly, followed by a yawn-riddled “is that all you wanted to ask? No late-night love confessions? Ooh, howzabout a murder plea?” 

The way he sounds now, so nonchalant and passive, it makes Peter wonder how many times he’s had to do it before; how many times he’s had to eliminate any trace of a nightmare, of a bad experience, swapping his terror for static jokes and blotted-out smiles, all in a split second. The circumstances that kickstarts, the ideas it begins to fuel- they wrench Peter’s heart as soon as he begins to dwell on them. He can’t bring up the nightmare, he knows he can’t. Wade will play it off with some PC joke he found online or deny it happened in the first place, and grow as distant as when you first met him the morning after. All he can really do, Peter realizes, is follow in tow and act normal. Which, to put it bluntly, doesn’t sit well with him. He’s spent so long switching out those strange feelings and wants for blatant hatred and agitation- he can afford the briefest allotments of affection just so Wade doesn’t fall asleep in a manual apathy.  _ It won’t make a difference,  _ is what he thinks,  _ it’ll be the same in the morning. It’s just for right now. _

“No, Wade,” Peter tells him thusly, and in that moment he refuses to speak with the usual idling chastisement. His voice comes out soft and empathetic, and though the words themselves aren’t particularly poetic, or even kind, the tone he speaks them in is genuine and tender. “I’ll be in my room, okay? Tell me if you find it.” 

With that, he takes his leave, his mind going a mile per minute as he shuts the door (a listless “Yessir, Spidey, sir!” chirruping in the back, though there’s a hint of earnest appreciation in the way he says it). Peter returns to his room, yanks off the mask, and upon flopping fully unto the bed, clutches a pillow so hard he well near tears the fabric.  _ Wade Wilson having nightmares. Wade Wilson covering up his nightmares to avoid the vulnerability. Wade Wilson recognizing that soft tone, and delivering a wary reciprocal.  _

It feels like a fever dream. Anger, to shock, to sadness, one whiplash after another and still so inconsequential. Peter doubts he’ll get any sleep tonight.

And once more, before he starts to overthink again, he wonders how much longer he can make himself hate Wade instead of popping stiffies over him.

_ Jesus Christ. _


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter overthinks things some more, and then overthinks with pancakes(?).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MAJOR thanks to everyone who read/commented/bookmarked/left kudos on this work, it means so much to me and it makes me so happy! again, this is my first fic in a VERY long time, so please excuse me if the pacing is rather clunky. the next fic i make when this one is wrapped up will have more of an outline. nevertheless, i hope you enjoy this one, too!!! :]

Peter is right about the sleep. 

The most he manages is intermittent naps, which he’s pretty sure accrue to less than an hour, total. His brain makes itself his enemy throughout the night, stirring out every what-if and potential wrongdoing made in the 3 minutes he was present in Wade’s room. Peter makes several attempts to kickstart his normal coping routine (find the smallest of nitpicks in anything Wade says or does, then exalt it until he makes himself pissy), but every try falls egregiously flat as soon as he begins to dwell on those nightmares. The way Wade’s hands were balled so tight, how shattered and unkempt his expression looked, more-so than Peter’s ever seen when he was conscious… it aches. There’s no other way to describe it- a low, dull groan in his chest, like metal rusting in the rain. He wishes he could do something to help, do something to alleviate whatever was haunting Wade in the depths of his subconscious, but all Peter can manage is to sit there and try to make himself hate, hate, hate. 

And yet, he can’t even do that much, can he? He can’t reach that hate, and there’s a small, awful part of him that starts to think he won’t be able to again. Or at least- not until he’s got a half-decent reason for it. A stick of dynamite has always been stuck to Peter’s emotional dam, after all, and try as he might to keep that stick quarantined, he can practically feel the aftermath of last night detonating it…

_ No, not detonating it, _ Peter realizes with the extraneous help of that one-awful-part-of-him. _ Just setting off the fuse. _

Because this isn’t the end of it, is it? A volcano doesn’t erupt in an instant. Peter still has his walls up, and his callous facade to Wade is still in near-full effect. Their dynamic may have changed in the shortest of seconds, but the aftermath is just beginning. Not to mention how, if this is just the distant hissing of a string-fuse starting to burn, he _ really _doesn’t want to imagine the levels of overthinking he’ll be on when this time-bomb reaches detonation. It suddenly feels like a sick countdown, tick-tick-ticking away until he can’t look Wade in the eye. 

And it’s all from a single goddamn inconvenience. One true glimpse of what Wade hides behind the mask, and everything falls to pieces. The tidbits have always been in place for Peter to solve them, of course, but now he’s seen the full picture in a way he can’t shake off or disregard. _ Now things are in motion, and it’s already breaking apart. _

In that moment, Peter feels sick enough to keel. 

But he doesn’t. Instead, he makes the executive decision that this over-analyzation is getting him nowhere, and to get on with his day. 

Peter’s used to multitasking, especially with his worries in tandem with responsibilities. He can’t stop the thoughts, per se, but he can operate in relative functionality while they fester. So, he rouses himself from the bed and nudges himself to the bathroom, where he starts his regular morning routine (all while _ Wade-feelings-Wade-inevitable-Wade _ plays in his head like a broken record he desperately wants to ignite). He brushes his teeth, washes his hair, rubs baby powder into the chafe-prone areas of his suit, the whole nine yards of an average broke superhero. It takes a solid 5 minutes just to tame the bedhead, the achievement of which is the one thing that grants a brief reprieve in the thoughts. From there, he debates on whether or not to resume work on the skewed web-shooters. He decides not to, reasoning that he wasn’t able to get work done with _ average _Wade antics, so now that his brain’s on overdrive it’s basically hopeless. Plus, Wade likes to poke around his room in the morning, especially when he’s tinkering around.

_ Avoiding him probably isn’t a good idea, _ awful-part-of-him supplies. Which, while true, is also something Peter very much doesn’t want to acknowledge. He decides on breakfast instead, since Wade rarely visits the kitchen until at least 12 (he says eating Avengers food in the morning makes him sick unless he’s stealing it), making it both a safe bet _ and _safe zone. Peter yanks on his mask to avoid being seen by any potential passerby (better safe than sorry) and heads out the door, walking opposite Wade’s room. The route he takes is considerably longer than if he were to simply walk past Wade’s door, but again, Peter doesn’t feel like facing the downfall of their once-stagnant relationship just yet. 

Which is ironic, because as soon as he opens the door to the kitchen, Wade Wilson is perched over the countertop flipping some grotesquely burn flat-thing. Peter thinks it might be a pancake. Then he thinks that, _ oh yeah _ , there are probably more important things to be worrying about than defining the inedible frying-pan ash. Which he does, as soon as Wade’s gaze turns to him. Clad in full-suit, Peter’s brain puts together, with absolutely no reason to be, along with a pink apron that says ‘ _ world’s coolest mom! _ ’ in some sort of off-brand comic sans. His mask is stained with batter, and gets ever messier as he flicks a lightly-used spatula about to some unsung tune. He’s pretty sure he can see the outline of a grin behind the mask, and he’s _ definitely _sure he can smell something ashen.

It should be incredibly stupid looking. It should be really, unfathomably stupid looking, so much so that it makes you burst into cackles as soon as you lay eyes upon it. 

Instead, Peter feels his chest constrict and throat tighten, skewing his breath and vocalization- or lack thereof. 

Now, Peter’s usually good in high-pressure situations. His spidey sense usually cues him in, and even without, his reaction time is second to none. He can handle abrupt bouts of gunfire, split-second decisions, and has recently discovered his proficiency in timed debacles, too. He’s capable of operating under a limit, or boundary, or whatever other restrictive significance is put into effect. Once, he managed to web up two dozen guys in eight seconds flat (but who’s counting, right?) Dexterity, in short, is one of Spider-Man’s most prized capabilities. However, this skill does _ not _ apply to romance, or- hell- social situations of any upstanding caliber. Peter knows this already. He’s experienced it with Gwen, then MJ, and then a few times more with Felicia. His words become clunky, slow, unnaturally dim-witted and awkwardly ejected, not to mention the fact that any control he holds over himself flies straight out the window in a big, flaming heap. He’s taken care to avoid it, to prepare responses and jokes beforehand- just a precaution to not look like more of an idiot than he has to already in that spandex spider suit. It’s routine, he’s figured it out, he just needs to know beforehand. 

But Peter has made no preparations for this situation, none whatsoever. His spidey sense doesn’t warn him on emotional dangers, he hadn’t seen it coming, he thought it would be safe, _ why didn’t I add in last night as a variable? _ He’s got nothing to say, he’s panicking more than he ever has in fights against global threats, and his throat cinches so tight that it does the worst thing Peter could fathom: _ make a noise. _It spills from him like a burst gas pipe, high and undignified, punctuated with a single harsh note at the end. The closest description would have to be “Eeeurghk!”, and even then it’s got a sort of finicky twinge that can’t be put into thought. 

But still. Eeeurghk. 

Wade’s still staring away at him, and that’s what he says. _ Eeeurghk. _ It’s not quiet, either- even if it was, he could see the way Wade’s expression shifted the moment it rang clear, so there’s no way that he _ hadn’t _heard it. 

Peter’s pretty sure this is what dying feels like. He prepares himself to do something positively inane (back out slowly, web Wade to the wall and make a break for the nearest window, move to Chicago and work as a waiter for the rest of his life)- but once again, same as yesterday, Wade Wilson butts in before he even has the chance.

“I know, right?_ Eeeurghk. _ I thought pancakes were _ easy _ to make.” He enunciates, wafting his spatula aimlessly for emphasis. “ _ This _ just looks like a kidney stone I passed last month.”

Wade sounds just as he had last night, the epitome of nonchalance and disillusioned cheer. He makes no mention of the nightmare, of Peter’s sudden soft-spokenness and the avalanche of feelings and severed boundaries fallen immediately thereafter. In fact, he sounds just as he always does, no more and no less. There’s comfort in that, really, like some sort of saving grace. _ Maybe he forgot about it, _Peter thinks to himself, equally as hopeful as he is (strangely, horribly) disappointed. He’d try to decipher some knowing look, or smug twitch of a grin, anything to help draw a conclusion- except Peter doesn’t think he’s seen Wade’s face fully uncovered in months. It only lets people see what Wade wants them to see, and right now, he isn’t giving Peter a single variable to work around with. While frustrating, it also gives Peter some leeway to assure himself, because there could be a chance that Wade forgot about the whole ordeal the moment he went back to sleep. God, he hopes he forgot about it.

_Do you, really? _offers awful-part-of-him, making Peter wonder briefly if this is what having one of Wade’s boxes is like. Probably not- Wade’s voices aren’t part of _him_, they just sort of are (“I’ve got my own self, and then they’re in me, too, all jammed together like Marie Kondo’s personal brain-hell,” he’d said). Either way, he should probably think of something to respond with. Preferably a statement that isn’t raw gibberish and stupidity. Wade’s chipper comments have lessened the tension, though, along with the (highly debatable) assurance that Wade had merely forgotten the incident completely- so it isn’t _too_ impossible steeling himself and forcing out what he hopes is, at the very least, mediocrely clever. 

“How did you even burn a pancake that badly?” is what snarks out. Despite his nerves’ reprieve, Peter still relishes that his words don’t twist about or shudder strangely. 

He _ does _ feel his heart shudder, though, strung tight with exasperated affection as Wade’s face blooms in anguish. It’s that campy sort of sadness, the melodrama exaggeration Wade likes to put on whilst facing the mildest of issues. It isn’t even just the expression, either- his voice goes low and tragic, right alongside the sheer thespianism of his face. “I was _ preoccupied, _thank you very much!” He defends with a frown and another flick of his spatula (Peter’s pretty sure he gets the batter on his face), “What was I supposed to do, set some sort of timer?”

Peter can’t help the snort that escapes from him, abrupt and entirely dorkish. It came along with puberty nearly one and a half decades ago, but never really went away_ . _ “That’s exactly what you’re supposed to do,” Peter informs, trying to ignore the embarrassment of his outburst and utterly failing. At least it isn’t bad as _ eeeurghk. _

Wade seems to think differently, though, since his expression falls all over again- this time even more fervently than before. “Is that a ‘no’ on being my taste-tester?” 

“I’d rather not eat a lump of char, Wade,” Peter informs him slowly, cocking a brow (which is, thankfully, a facial gesture that transfers easily through the mask). “What was so important that it made pancakes look like _ that, _anyway?”

Wade’s expression sours ever further at Peter’s rejection, yet again- all up until he inquires what sort of distraction could’ve turned a pancake into a solid chunk of coal, in which case his face brightens like it’s Christmas. “I heard the intro to _ The Golden Girls _ playing in the next room over,” he says with near-tangible cheer, and just a hint of sheepishness. “You know the song, right? _ Thank you for being a friend- _that one,” he adds after a brief hesitation, just in case Peter isn’t getting the gist of it (he is). 

He is_ also _ trying to hold in painful amounts of endearment, sharp and volatile in the base of his throat. It’s like some kind of sick joke to make someone so notoriously violent, mangled, frustrating, erratic and unpredictable, and then also make him so unbearably fucking appealing. For a moment, Peter is surprised with himself- surprised that he managed to have himself hate Wade for so long, especially when it so easily crumbled, too. Then he’s surprised with himself even more, because he manages to keep his voice from going to dog-whistle levels of high pitched when he says “I know what _ The Golden Girls _is, Wade.”

“Good! That’s great!” Wade chitters enthusiastically, and suddenly there’s a forkful of cauterized pancake in Peter’s face, “So you’ll try it for me, then? Maybe you’ll like it horrifically carbonized,”

(Maybe the boundary issues were how he managed.)

“I’m _ not _eating that,” Peter buzzes back, “I never even said I’d try it, I just said-”

“Just one bite? Come on, for me?”

Peter is about to quip back fleetly, ignoring the part of him (probably awful-part-of-him) that starts thinking _ Come on, for me? _in the absolute most abhorrent of situations, when an announcement over the speaker system cuts them both off.

“Please head to the Team Training Facility in the left-wing,” JARVIS requests politely. “Steven Rogers is hosting an impromptu session.”

Wade’s eyes meet Peter’s in sync with the inverse, followed by something akin to an eye-roll (masks) from both of them. 

“Love the guy, but he needs to let me pan my cakes,” Wade grumbles to himself, but tosses the pan (and the charred not-cake) into the sink nevertheless. Then, he adds, “You’re tasting my next experiment for sure, capiche?” over to Peter.

Peter finds himself smiling, no matter how much he tries not to. He knows the shape of his mask will interpret the emotions accordingly, and he doesn’t want to think about the reactions flitting in Wade’s head. “Once you stop calling them experiments, I’ll think about it.” He tells him flatly, or what he tries to make seem flat. 

This seems to satiate Wade considerably, enough for him to get a move on to the left-wing, and Peter watches himself as he follows in tow after him. No questions asked, no alternate routes taken, just him trotting behind Wade like some lost sort of puppy. 

_ Nice view, huh? _

  
He can hear the ticking again. _ No going back now. _


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wade and Peter play tag. Peter overthinks it and screws himself over.

The training room on the left wing is a repurposed hangar with strange, uncouth architecture made to represent different environmental terrain. It’s meant for cooperative exercises between the Avengers and other associated superheroes, and for singular training when you want to familiarize with alternative topography. Perches and sidling ledges line the hangar’s upper walls like an elaborate bird-cage, while the ground is peppered with uneven grooves and rocky contours, with the occasional ladder or craggy incline. It’s designed to emulate a real battlefield, and even has the appropriate heat and ventilation systems to get acute temps for specific situations. Peter’s only been here a couple of times before, a few for mandated training and once for corroboration with the Fantastic Four, but he’s relatively acquainted with the playing field anyways. His method is simple: swing up to one of the roosts, find an optimal angle to join the thrall, and don’t get hit by any stray shields or laser-beams. Sometimes he’ll swap out which post he lingers around, but other than that, the regimen is strictly routine. Then again, he’s also never participated in a regime that consists of more than a free-for-all, and he’s not exactly expecting something else. 

(Leave it to him to overthink nothing, and gloss over the things worth thinking about.)

Peter follows Wade into the hangar, where several Avengers have already gathered. Steve is fronting them, per the usual, reciting the procedure. 

It’s not the normal procedure, though. In fact, once Peter picks up where Steve’s instructions have cut to, he realizes it’s a different procedure entirely. “Once you’ve decided on your partner, one of you will take on the role as chaser, and the other will be the runner.” Steve tells them, words ringing out clear and affirmative, in that type of voice where you have no choice but to comprehend the words being said. “The ability to outrun- or catch- your opponent is an incredibly important skill to hone, so I expect you all to take it dutifully.” He goes on, and it’s almost firm enough that it distracts Peter from the fact that, wait, Captain America is basically telling them to play two-person tag as a team exercise._ Almost. _

At least Steve seems to acknowledge this troubling revelation, as he hastily tail-ends his instructions with an incisive “I know this isn’t exactly our normal procedure, but lately, _someone-_” he eyes Wade pointedly, because_ of course _he does, “-said that the training routines were too boring, so I decided to change things up a tad. I wouldn’t want our _routine training exercises _to get boring.” 

Yet again, Peter has to fight and hold in a snicker (it doesn’t work too well, he gets a glare and a grin in tandem or two). _ Leave it to Wade Wilson to back mouth Captain-fucking-America’s workout sessions, _he thinks with amusement, because it’s all he can do not to adore it instead. 

“So,” Steve finalizes after another pause for reprieve, (all while ignoring the scattered groans and impossibly minute amusement at the wink Wade gives him), “we’ll be doing a different kind of session this time. I hope this is less… _monotonous_ than our usual drill.” 

Peter’s pretty sure he hears Steve grumble something about how team practice ‘isn’t supposed to be merry’ as he passes by to the hangar’s starting point, welling another bout of amusement through his system. Once more he fails to hold in a snort, earnest and shaken and bemused, just as Wade places a hand on his shoulder- which is when he remembers Steve _ also _ mentioned something about partnering up. Of course Wade is going to want to be his partner- _ not like that- _ his _ sparring _ partner, it’s a no-brainer by default, and the realization instantly dilutes the amusement. Then again, Peter’s the only person that really knows how to tolerate him, so it makes sense that they’d practice together, and- at the very least- it’s a more functional matchup than Wade versing any _ other _ Avenger in the premises. Honestly, he _ really _ doesn’t want to think about the sort of antics that guy would get up to if he were paired up with, say, Natasha- so this is actually the most favorable outcome of them all. In a purely objective way of thinking, obviously. It isn’t personal, he doesn’t need to make it personal. Wade considers him a friend, (the ultimate man-crush, actually, which is something Peter will never, ever get over), so it’s only natural. It’s not personal to choose someone you can tolerate. _ For the love of god, don’t make it personal. _

“Hola, mi amor, please be my punch-buddy?” Wade peeps at him, followed by a ridiculously sultry, “I’ve always wanted to hunt you down.” 

_ He’s so going to make it personal. _

Peter swallows the thoughts back hard as he possibly can, and ducks out of Wade’s touch (as if he didn’t _ so _ want to preen into it) as he thinks of an appropriately indifferent reply. After a pause, which he hopes comes off as begrudging contemplation, Peter tells him a strict “Only as damage control,” with his eyes narrowed to slits through the mask (because the tremor in his voice might be less noticeable if he looks intimidating while it happens). “It’s just training, so don’t try to pull any of the stuff you usually do.” 

Wade has the guts to look offended at that, god forbid, but doesn’t exactly protest. Instead, he just says “Spoilsport Spidey,” in a crabby huff, and trots his way to the hangar’s kickoff line.

Once there, Steve instructs them that all runners are to make a ten-foot gap between them and the chaser and run on his mark. Peter feels his heart-rate elevate, makes an eleven-foot gap (which Steve dismisses innocuously), and tries to ignore the lurid noises Wade beings to crow out from behind him. Awful-part-of-him has, in the course of a few seconds, gone into full overdrive; it’s is continuously rattling out every erotic situation even remotely comprehensible, and Wade’s constant provocation worsens it about tenfold. At that point, Peter realizes the magnitude of the situation he’s in: Wade is going to _ chase him down, _ and presumably _ pin him _ because Wade is _ dramatic _ like that, and Peter is going to flash back on those nightmares, and on every time Wade has commented on his ass, or his eyes, or any other remotely attractive part of Peter’s body, and then every single part of his body is going to set itself on fire in brilliant unison and Peter’s never, ever going to live it down. The ticking comes back, Peter scrabbles to see if there’s any, _ any _ excuse whatsoever, just to ditch this hangar and bury himself in the first sinkhole he sees, and then he’s intercepted because it’s already too late. 

“Go!” Steve calls, flagging them off. 

_ Well, at least you’re running away. _

Peter has nothing left but to take Steve’s instruction to heart. He launches forward with reckless abandon, masked eyes wider than full moons. He’s a good runner, leaping in long, sweeping strides, but the panic has him just narrowly avoiding the ledges and grooves that are sure to trip him up. Peter is also pretty sure he can Wade’s hooting his enthusiasm in the background, distant but surprisingly sincere, like he’s genuinely excited about having to chase Spider-Man around the training hangar (then again, chances are he probably is). Yet again, Peter feels his chest ache, and this doesn’t do wonders for his escapee techniques mind you, and he’s doing and registering and processing this _ all _in addition to the contemplation of symbolism at play here... Then again, it’s not like the analysis is difficult, considering he is- very literally- running away from Wade, drawing further back in tow with every unprecedented road block and tree stump. It’s practically a manifested representation of what Peter’s emotions are performing: an elaborate escapade of ramping emotions with Wade none the wiser. At least, he’s pretty sure Wade’s none the wiser. He hopes he’s none the wiser. He prays it, banks on it. 

_ Wrong again. You hope he’s all the wiser, _ and _ you hope he pins you to the ground and- hey, that wall shouldn’t be there, should it? _

Now, Peter’s pretty sure he heard something about revisions on the left wing, but figured it was merely a few touch-ups and style decisions. That’s what he’d registered, that’s what was talked about in the break rooms and lunch tables and whatnot. The most innovative asset to the redesign he’d picked up on through the grape-vine was some sort of new coffee machine doohickey that could, apparently, brew faster than all the others on the market. For this reason, Peter did not expect, and thusly prepare for beforehand, an absolute grandiose alteration that was made to the outer edges of the hangar, where the terrain had been switched from regular levels of aggravating for something even _ more _ confusing and dynamic. The track he ran, and now currently runs upon (why hadn’t he just swung onto a perch?) _ used _ to lead from the starting line to a loop-around the facility- but now it cuts off suddenly into a dead end, the cliffside too steep to climb. It’s such an abrupt change in pace that Peter stops in his tracks entirely, mind blanking instead of producing the very _ obvious _ solution whilst he’s still got time to spare. All the while, Peter panics almost as hard as he fumes: wondering if he had just missed a debriefing on the renovations, or if everyone simply hadn’t bothered to tell him- whilst _ also _wondering how long he’s got until Wade’s tackling him to the ground. If he only had some sort of rope- some way of scaling the wall, like plungers he could use to stick or rock climbing gear like a pickaxe, or anything, anything at-

_ Oh, goddammit. _

Peter can hear rustling just behind him, now, close and coming ever closer, (_ why are you panicking so hard about this? Why are you overthinking so much?) _ . He’s already wasted too much time, and he needs a kickoff if he wants to scale the wall on hands and feet with decent velocity. Considering the time constraints in his current situation, in which any sort of tactical launch maneuver would end in his getting cornered- Peter crosses out its viability and moves onto the next (and last) option. This single other alternative, as it turns out, is shooting a web to a higher plateau, and yanking himself upwards as hard as possible. This is, frankly, an awful move all-around. It’s risky, for one-- the angle is all wrong, _ and _ trying to hitting skewed surfaces with bracelet-shooters are an absolute nightmare. Let alone the pressure, since by the time he’s finished overthinking all this bullshit, he won’t have any time to spare before making his move. 

Speaking of which, Peter’s blood runs ice cold as Wade says “Found you, baby boy,” less than five meters behind. Suddenly, overthinking is less than optimal, and his options have panned out to a hearty numero uno. No matter how awful it is, Peter realizes that webbing the wall is the one chance he’s got. He’s got to make it work, or else he’s either going to never see Wade again, never _ want _ to see Wade again, or both, or something even worse than that which he doesn’t currently have the brain capacity to fathom. And thus, Peter aims the web-shooter to the absolute best of his ( _ singed, haywire, unreliable _) abilities, and takes his chance with all the focus and energy he can muster. It launches, up, up, further, and then-

(_ You forgot to reprogram it.) _

_ Ah. _

Reprogramming it. 

The one thing he’d meant to do by coming here, the project that got abstracted by Wade, and Wade alone. 

There’s an acute sort of irony there that makes Peter want to laugh, cry, and rip his hair out all at the same time. 

Without the according program texts needed for adjustment, his web-shot immediately drifts to the left, and starkly, at that. It falls several feet short and away from his mark, fluttering in the air like silk in the wind. He notices, in that moment, that his webs glint in the sunlight, flicking like like a fine string woven of pearls or steel. In the moment after that, Peter registers the sympathetic smile Wade gives to him, and promptly feels every major organ sink and twist as a result. It’s almost like Wade understands the finality of this- like he knows if he pins Peter, then things will never be the same. That Peter will fall in love with Wade “Deadpool” Wilson, and instead of the forced amounts of ridicule and hate he’s tried so hard to maintain, he’s going to want to touch him, and see under that goddamn mask, and peel back the layers until he can actually, truly see him. 

Key word, there, though. _ Almost. _

Because despite Wade’s chipper, loving smile, he launches forward with every bit of gall and cheer that one would expect him to. Peter makes sure to send out a silent eulogy to himself, as if there would be anyone who cared enough to listen. 

_ Wade would listen. _

And then the bomb goes off.

It’s almost poetic, the dichotomy of his webs blowing so freely in the wind, detaching and withering and dispersing, a cotton cloud in gusts; while Peter gets pinned to the wall, Wade’s elbows bracketing either side of his head as they heave their breaths in unsynchronized unity. Peter can feel his throat cinch- his heart is beating faster than a hummingbird’s, and he feels ten times as flighty, twenty times as roused. He can feel himself zeroing in on Wade, which means nothing more than rock bottom, and there’s absolutely no longer a chance of salvaging this. His eyes widen, and every sense he has hyperfixates and amplifies like a myriad of microscopes, flasks and lab inspections. He hones in on the way Wade smells (like musk, sweat, and burnt-fucking-pancakes), the broad angles and flats of his chest and arms and every other muscle, and the scars that mottle his body like a zombie (and how Peter doesn’t fucking care), and on that contemplative expression Wade’s giving him right now, the one that gives nothing away, one that frankly scares the shit out of Peter from the uncertainty- but makes him hope so hard at the same time, and- 

...And he hasn’t said anything, has he? Have_ either _ of them said anything? No, they haven’t, of course they haven’t- it’s just been Peter, immobile on this stupid dead-end rock, as Wade pins him and Peter thinks about the nightmares and how _ fucking close Wade is. _

So- yes, he should probably say something.

_ The bomb’s already gone off. Pick up the pieces or set a new timer. _

He should definitely say something. 

But, like always, Wade says something first. 

“You ever think about investing in a jockstrap, babycakes?”

It takes Peter a solid ten seconds just for that innuendo to reach through the thick of his skull (and even then it has to be aided by _ several _cursory glances from Peter’s eyes to his crotch.) 

When it hits, Peter finally understands what it’s like to have your soul wither in your body. Really, truly, openly and honestly. Is there anything more honest than this? Than the way he looks down and feels every ounce of his blood transmute to dry ice? No, hell no. He lays against that wall, stupider than ever, with one pulsing thought and one thought alone, the one he can’t even try to tolerate. 

_ Hello, Spidey-Junior. _


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter gives up on overthinking. They don't fuck against a wall. Peter kind of wishes they did, but he's gets the next best thing.

“Is it the size thing? Most people tell me it’s the size thing. I don’t look half bad when I’m in a leather Zentai- s’all bulk and none of the malignant neo-diseases. Hey, wow, you look like you’re about to puke, are you okay?” 

Wade’s words only barely register into the pulsing cacophony that is Peter’s brain. He feels dizzy, just enough so that it makes his vision swim, but not enough that it sends him careening to the floor, which is probably the worst kind of dizzy to be suffering from. To be honest, Peter really just wants to curl into a ball and groan into his palms for the rest of eternity, all while his head and heart and  _ other parts  _ pound and throb like it’s Doomsday and he doesn’t want to die a virgin. It’s the first time since puberty that Peter’s popped a stiffy so blank-minded and unequivocally targeted, so specific to a single person via the circumstances that there’s no real way to brush it off except admitting the truth. Which is, of course, that Deadpool is giving Spider-Man a rock hard boner by getting in close proximity and spouting a couple of dirty jokes. AKA, the very schtick that makes Deadpool… Well, Deadpool. The wise-cracking, self-proclaimed basket case that Peter wants to know, and wants to see, and for _ some  _ reason can bring himself to like the exterior, even despite the yearning to see inside. That Deadpool. It’s always been a fight not to enjoy his presence, and even more of a struggle to feign hatred- but now he can’t, everything’s out in the open, and he likes Wade Wilson inside and out.

_ (Like it enough to hang a flagpole in the training hangar, apparently.) _

And all the while, Wade just keeps  _ talking _ . Peter basks in his pocket-rocket-induced embarrassment and blank, loathful haze, while he blabbers on and on about the most inane of things. “Did you know that the burritos here suck complete and utter nads?” He says, and how he transitioned from casual boner-talk back to his obsession with Hispanic cuisine is beyond Peter, “It’s like, none of the actual Mexican goodness, and all of the shitting a hole through your knockoff leather suit. It’s a nightmare.”

The words are abhorrent. Honest to god. So much so that Peter, for a moment, has to wonder  _ why. _ Wade can be bad, sure, but why is he saying such abysmal, boner-killing bullshit  _ now,  _ of all times?  _ It’s insane,  _ he thinks, he almost gets mad and snaps something awful at him- until he realizes that Wade’s doing it on purpose. 

He’s  _ trying  _ to be unsexy. He’s trying to get Peter’s stupid erection to die off, because he  _ knows  _ Peter’s never going to live it down if he doesn’t. It’s an intentional stupidity, sacrificing his own (nonexistent) dignity so that Peter can scrabble to retain his own. It’s… surprisingly selfless, actually. Amazingly, idiotically selfless. Peter was almost expecting Wade to take advantage of the situation- to just pin him to the wall and screw him stupid because Peter wouldn’t have the wits and motivation to stop him. But no, he doesn’t- Wade’s doing the exact opposite: alleviating the problem in the only way he knows how, all while giving him this dopey sort of expression that’s so earnest and doting that it almost makes Peter  _ wish  _ he’d chosen the whole fucking-him-silly thing. At the very least, they could play  _ that  _ off as some spur of the moment mistake. This, though- this whole experience, this single stream of stupid- they can’t act like this is some sort of elongated gag reel. The face Wade’s making at him right now- as silly as it may be- is also slightly aloof, aware, behind the seams of his mask; pensive, even, when you squint. It’s an opaque indicator that Wade knows full-well what’s going on, that he registers every word he’s saying as intentional, and that Peter’s going to fall all the more in love with him for it. For once in his whole life, Wade actually looks  _ real.  _ Focused. Hellbent on aiding Peter, even if it means he’s going to look like an idiot for it. They can’t play off something real. 

And, okay, Wade  _ does  _ look like an idiot a whole fucking lot- but the intention has never been for someone else. It’s always been for personal entertainment, like his whole life’s a game and he’s snapping the board for shits and giggles. Now it’s got a purpose other than comedy- and even though it’s in the most bewildering of circumstances, Peter can’t help the way his heart twinges in response. It nearly distracts him from the fact that he’s still owning major stick-shift in his stupid un-cupped suit. He really  _ should  _ get a jockstrap.

He should  _ also _ probably interrupt Wade before the guy’s lung collapses, Peter realizes; he’s been rattling off one topic after another, all equally as unappealing as the next, without a single pause to catch his breath. It’s the dumbest effort just to kill Peter’s flesh-hose, but it still must be hell for his lungs- one-liners aren’t going to laser off the scar tissue, after all. It’s common courtesy to stop him before he busts his trachea. 

Now, does Peter have any idea what to say to achieve that? Absolutely not, nothing whatsoever. He didn’t plan for this, didn’t plan for boners, didn’t plan for heartfelt moments within the midst of those boners. But he feels like he can try. The tension feels less sexual, more of embarrassment, more of affection- and, sure, Peter  _ does  _ still want Wade to pin him to the wall without the pants-shitting anecdotes, but right now… he actually feels okay. Wade’s making stupid jokes, they’re in an awkward situation that may or may not need fixing, Peter’s on the brink of snapping or throwing himself into the dirt- it’s just like always, except Peter is actually seeing Wade for the first time. It’s all the annoying shenanigans they’ve gone through wrapped in a hangar-shaped bundle, but they’re not annoying, and Peter is seeing so much.

And- fuck- that might be another bomb waiting to go off, but what a nice little explosion it would be. 

“Wade,” Peter says finally, forces the words out like they hurt (which halts Wade right in the middle of a spiel about Avril Lavigne’s clone). “Wade, it’s fine. I’m not…” 

_ He’s not hard anymore. _

It almost feels like a missed opportunity. Not too much, though, because the curious expression Wade is giving him makes him feel like a second chance is possible. 

“...You know.” He concludes lamely, because he doesn’t want to spit out any of the various pseudonyms for a raging dick tower. It’s not elegant, it’s not graceful, and for once in his life, that’s fine. Peter’s not expecting it to be. 

Wade’s not, either, apparently. 

“Your groin ferret took a nappy-poo?” the moron supplies with all the enthusiasm of a puppy. It’s simultaneously the worst thing Peter’s ever heard in years, and the one thing that manages to get him to cover his mouth and try not to burst into cackles. 

He feels cracked open, Peter does, and he couldn’t even care less- maybe the blood hasn’t made it back into his brain just yet. Or could Wade just be really, really good at manipulating tension at will? Either way, Peter hasn’t felt this relaxed- this  _ loopy-  _ since he arrived, and it’s such a dramatic change of pace that he almost wants to laugh at that, too. This whole thing is so stupid, so outrageous, and he’s only just realizing it now. He got a boner because he was  _ pinned _ , and Wade’s solution to that was to  _ ramble out the stupidest shit imaginable until it went down.  _ It’s so fucking ludicrous, or at least it feels that way- so maybe he should just say something without overthinking it into oblivion.

“It died down, yeah,” Peter finally confirms, with all the sobriety he can muster (which isn’t very much). “Thank you. For- uh-”

“-rattling off the unsexiest shit imaginable until your love-stick finally offed itself?” Wade finishes for him, still grinning with that moronic, fantastic smile. Peter nods a begrudging agreement to the descriptor, which earns him an even wider grin and a “Good, you should be- because next time you start pointing that web-shooter  _ au naturale  _ at me, I ain’t gonna have the decency to talk it to death.” 

“Shut  _ up _ ,” Peter pleads, but it’s got no bite, or vigor of any sort. It’s just cotton, really- his real response is in how his lips twinge into a hidden smirk, and the way his body folds to avoid laughter all over again.  _ Deadpool: The Only Person That Could Make a Boner Seem Casual, But Not Really!  _ offers awful-part-of-him cheerfully, which suddenly doesn’t feel too extraordinarily awful. Instead, he’s able to brush it off with a sniff of amusement, and gives Wade a wearied (but happy) look as he says “We need to get back before the rumors start. You know how things get.”

“Well, technically, they wouldn’t be too off the mark-”

Peter elbows him. Wade makes a pained noise, then chortles immediately afterward. 

They start forward in unison, then, quiet for only the briefest of moments. It’s long enough, though. Long enough for Peter to realize that this is the start of something good. Something he enjoys. It’s not a relationship, per se, but it could  _ get  _ there, and he doesn’t need to run away from it any longer. Yes, he’s still going to be embarrassed about popping a very noticeable (and very noticed) erection after getting pinned to the wall, and yes, he’s probably going to overthink all of this later on like he usually does… but it feels okay, for right now. Just walking like normal, like nothing ever happened- but something  _ did  _ happen, and that something is just enough to make Peter feel okay about this. Because, after all, he  _ saw _ Wade. Saw underneath, saw the way the egregious amounts of inappropriate jokes and erratic apathy could be shed for something lighter, something lovable. Part of that is terrifying, but for right now it just is. It’s okay to-

“So, was it the size?” Wade asks him abruptly, again, as if he were asking the time. “It’s usually a size thing. Or sometimes it’s the suit. Sometimes it’s both. As long as you can’t see the skin, I might as well be a model. Or it’s just nerves. Who knows. Heat-of-the-moment type of stuff, you dig?” 

Peter does not dig. He balks, actually.

Wade’s saying it like it’s a superficial thing. Like a niche, one-off mistake. A  _ kink.  _ Like it’s not just him, like it could’ve been any super-macho-cancer-cell waltzing up and earning a hard-on beyond reason, like it wasn’t because it was  _ Wade.  _

And, well, Peter doesn’t like being too profane, but in moments like these, it’s more than warranted. 

_ Fuck that.  _

“It was because of you, moron. If I went around getting hard at every muscle-man I spar with, they would’ve kicked me out of the Avengers, like, years ago.” Peter informs him, point-blank and deadpan. His words come out sharp and honest, because it’s all Peter can really do in tandem with desperate hoping that they land. “Have you ever thought that maybe I  _ want  _ to see the skin? You’re the most unpredictable, abstract, weird and  _ uncomfortable  _ person I’ve ever met, and I really want to-” he makes a garbled noise, clenching his hands, “-but I also want to know you better, and I’d really like it if you- like- took me to some Taco Bell even though it so totally sucks, and you suck.” 

It’s probably the worst love confession that Peter’s ever managed to eject from his mouth, and that’s including the time he threw up in front of Amy Lynne in the second grade. 

It leaves Wade absolutely dumbfounded, eyes as huge as saucers as they duck through a blanket of underbrush. 

They’re getting closer to the kickoff line, now- Peter can hear the voices of (slightly winded and disgruntled) Avengers up ahead. This is instantly a relief, because he just spilled his guts out to Wade in- again- the worst way imaginable, and if he needs an out he can web himself promptly through the nearest exit.  _ (No you can’t, you made the haywire webs mistake once and you’ll throw a fit if you do it again- just run out instead.)  _ They don’t even stop walking to discuss the subject matter further- to buy themselves some time of elaboration before greeting the rest of the team and pretending everything’s normal. They simply walk in silence for a few moments (though it feels more like a century), before finally, right as they’re about to navigate through a curtain of vineyards into civilization, one of them speaks.

“Are you asking me to ask you out to Taco Bell?” Wade says, his voice bewildered- genuinely, utterly shocked. It’s such a grandiose display of slow thinking that Peter kind of wants to grab the guy by the crotch,  _ just _ to drive the point home in time for next year. 

He doesn’t, though. Instead, he says “If you don’t knife anyone on the premises? That’s exactly what I’m saying. Wrap your head around it before I change my mind,” and ducks under the vineyard to rejoin the rest of the group before Wade can respond (or process it, even). 

Wade doesn’t follow suit for several minutes.

In that time, Peter fabricates an explanation as to why they were so late (Wade got lost, Peter spent some time trying to find him, it was no use, etc), gets lightly scolded by Steve for leaving Wade to fend for himself (and yet he doesn’t send anyone to go and fetch Wade, either, which both amuses Peter and makes him want to smack Steve for hypocrisy), and finally panics himself back into nausea about his disaster of a confession. Yet again, for the umpteenth time, his brain goes into warp speed: what Wade’s doing, and what Wade’s thinking right now, why is he taking so long, what did he do wrong, and  _ how is Wade going to reject him because he read the whole situation wrong and somehow Wade’s repeated proclamations of Spider-Man infatuation aren’t actually just that, they’re just another layer to the endless enigma that is Deadpool, and Peter was a moron thinking he could ever see what’s underneath- _

Then Steve brushes aside the vineyards, claiming to hear rustling, to reveal Wade doing what can only be described as a victory dance.

A fucking  _ victory dance.  _

Peter almost,  _ almost, _ kicks Wade in the groin when he gives him a wink and a nod- a definitive agreement to a Taco Bell rendezvous. It’s hard to refute the urge, but miraculously, he manages.

Because instead, he snorts so hard he hurts himself, and cackles when several Avengers give him disconcerted glances. 

“You’re such a- a-” he stammers out, but can’t bring himself to say the words, because he has nothing to say in the first place, nothing to call him. Peter wheezes again, and forces himself out of his stupor before Bruce or Tony or whoever else tries to take his temperature. “I’m sorry, he just- he didn’t- I’m tired. I didn’t get much sleep.”

It isn’t much of an excuse. It’s not an excuse at all, really. It’s a stupid dismissal that doesn’t function as reasoning. 

His teammates share pensive glances to one another, and then accept it as the truth in a brilliant, unanimous agreement of  _ none of our business.  _ It’s the biggest relief Peter’s felt since a solid three seconds ago. 

“Good job, everyone,” Steve tells them formally, after he waves Wade back into the thick of things and shushes the scattered confusion and chatter, “you can all go back to your normal activities.”

Peter doesn’t know why he lingers behind while all the other Avengers filter out, one by one, until it’s just him and Wade. Actually, he could know, he could figure it out with just a few blips of his synapses- but he doesn’t care enough to try. Instead, he gives Wade one glance, and implores with a visceral tidal wave of conflicting emotions, “A victory dance? Was that a victory dance? Are you serious? Are you really, actually-” 

“I’ve got a date with  _ Spidey,  _ of course I have to do a victory dance, are you dense-”

“ _ Can we please just get out of here and go to your stupid Taco Bell before I smack you and change my mind,” _

“...Like, right now, or-?”

“Yes, shut up, right now, oh my god, I’m not going to have the balls to bring it up later so just-” he gesticulates explanatorily. “Just…  _ Yeah. _ ”

And- wow- Peter has never been more happy to see Wade shut up and nod his head. 

_ (They take about three seconds of walking before Wade makes a joke about Glen Bell. Peter’s grateful for it.) _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think this fic should be wrapping up in about two chapters, one for taco bell and one for ;], but tell me if you want to see anything happen in those chapters!! any discussion, etc etc :0


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter and Wade kick themselves out of a Taco Bell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter isnt sponsored by taco bell. ive never even been there. i had to look up their fucking menu. what in the absolute shit is a quesarito
> 
> (also sorry for a bit of a longer wait for this one!! my excuse is im a lazy bastard who fucked their sleep schedule up and now im paying the price .)

  
  


“And then  _ I  _ had to go like, ‘no, Vaporub doesn’t cure hemorrhoids, stop telling me it does’...” Wade blabbers mindlessly, mask hitched to his top lip as he scarfs down a quesarito. 

Peter has been listening to Wade go on about inane life snapshots for a solid ten minutes, as they sit in the back seats of a Taco Bell down the road. Before that, he’d listened to Wade talk for the entirety of the way there; through the hallways of Stark Tower, out the door and down all the urban sidewalks of New York City. For once in his life, he’s happy to let Wade go on. The anecdotes are actually rather funny on several occasions- and even when they’re just simple recollections of the latest  _ Full House  _ reruns, Peter is content to let Wade ramble. It’s almost soothing, actually; he doesn’t have to worry about cutting Wade off at every stupid joke, or fret himself thinking of some witty retort at Wade’s expense- all he has to do is sit there, nibbling at his quesadilla, and watch Wade chatter on and on about the things Peter never knew he cared about. Like axolotls (“Their limbs regrow!”), or geocaching (“It’s a treasure hunt for vegans!”), or the history of badminton (“It used to be called  _ Poona,  _ did you know that?”); Wade’s got so many things to say, and he says it all with such deliberate earnest and enthusiasm. Peter finds himself smiling the whole time through a mouthful of chicken and queso, mask pulled over the bridge of his nose, intercepting Wade whenever he thinks of an input (which Wade seems to enjoy considerably).

Then, out of the blue, Wade’s chatter pauses for just a moment- and halfway through a paragraph about orangutans, too.

“Hey, it’s a nice day out, why don’t we take this _ fine cuisine out into _ the sunlight?” is what he starts again with,  _ of course he does- _ although there’s a key difference in his tone. All the ardor has been drained, like a lively animal eviscerated and hung to dry. Peter doesn’t even need to wonder what caused it- not for long- because Wade tells him in hasty addition: “Those cashiers have been halfway to shitting themselves the moment I stepped through the door. My gorgeous mug must be too much to handle.” The words are prideful, but wholly faked, and Peter takes just a moment to have the words click.

Now that Peter is actually thinking about it, he  _ has  _ noticed the employees sending wary glances their way. At first, he’d merely assumed it was the costumes (getting Spider-Man and Deadpool on a lunch date at your Taco Bell is kind of strange, after all), but he realizes the truth once he recognizes the coveted notes of defeat in Wade’s voice. The employees aren’t peering at  _ them,  _ they’re peering at Wade.  _ Just  _ Wade. His scars, to be precise.  _ That’s _ why hesitance and discomfort were so profound on their faces- they saw the scars and got confused, got scared, got  _ weirded out.  _ Listening to Wade as he rambled on and on about nothing of importance, Peter had legitimately forgotten the fact that not everyone is used to the mangled, unnatural decrepitation of Wade’s face. The knowledge that iconic Deadpool profile is (and always will be) a cause for double-takes, confusion, and  _ genuine fear _ had slipped Peter’s mind, and now that the remembrance arises once more… well, he feels his heart sink harder than the Titanic. He also kind of wants to punch the employees, and yet, he really can’t bring himself to, because it’s not like they’re exactly  _ wrong  _ about it. As much as he hates saying it, Wade  _ is  _ grotesque. 

His scars aren’t the average scathe on the cheek, or even a face transplant. It’s a full-body amassment of mottled, unappealing rivulets. His skin dips and curves unnaturally, making itself a mountain range of tumors and caverns. He has pink gashes littering every other square inch of his body, strips of exposed muscle that look like a fleshy checkerboard knifed itself onto Wade’s flesh. Not to mention the suit, and the bulk, and the fact that he’s got  _ katanas  _ strapped over his back making him look like some mutilated halberd of death- it’s all rather imposing on their own, let alone together, when you don’t know him. Actually, no, scratch that, he’s  _ still  _ imposing when you know him. Even after listening to the vast array of exasperating toilet jokes and self-deprecating puns, Wade’s still got the capability (and irresponsibility) to snap your neck in half without warning. He can be a terrifying person when he wants to be. 

That’s the thing, though.

Peter knows how much Wade  _ doesn’t  _ want to be terrifying- knows he’d do or give up almost anything just to not look like lymphoma on two legs. It’s such a blatant yearning, clear as day with every joke Wade makes about himself, and  _ that’s  _ why he wants to punch the cashiers in their stupid, oblivious faces. It’s because they’ve got no idea about that yearning, about  _ anything _ , and chances are, they never will, since Wade never lets anybody see. Anybody but Peter, and a handful of other one-in-a-million stragglers that Wade felt comfortable enough to open up to. 

And, really, that would be flattering if it wasn’t so sad.

But it  _ is  _ sad, and Peter has to strain to keep his voice level as he words out his agreement (because if there’s anything Wade hates worse than his face, it’s people trying to defend it). “You sure you don’t want to eat in this- uh-  _ fine Mexican architecture _ ?” he asks, and tries to make his voice sound as airily comedic as possible. It doesn’t work, and Peter figures it won’t the very instant he says it: there’s a visceral layer of sympathy lingering underneath his chipper pitch, something strong and blatant, like a cyanide capsule in a water bottle. And- while Wade definitely isn’t an empath, or anything close to a psychologist- he’s absolutely smart enough to detect pity when he sees it. Or, at least, smart enough to detect what he  _ believes  _ to be pity, anyway. Regret wells in the pit of Peter’s stomach before Wade responds, but the apology that regret manifests comes too late to intercept when he does.

“I’d rather not make some minimum-wage high schooler shittilate themselves on the job, Webs,” Wade tells him flatly, and smirks just as he always does as moves to stand up; that awful, blatant grin that’s almost as bad as the literal mask hiding his face. Looking at it now, the view is so obvious, which is when Peter realizes, remembers, another awful thing. The worst part about the grin isn’t how it hides things, it's that nobody had ever cared enough to try and wonder about it. Hell, it took Peter at _least _three months, three fucking months, just to realize how fake it was. Three months to see how much of his face was purely an obscurity, even _under _the mask- a veil so fine-tuned to hide Wade’s real emotions that it was indistinguishable from the rest of him. How he’d had gotten so good at coveting his feelings that not even Wade himself seemed to fully realize when he was dissimulating, Peter doesn’t know- and honestly- he doesn’t really want to. All he _really _knows is that, even on a date, even with his mask up, even around Spider-Man, Wade still shifts back into that persona without realizing it, a visor smeared across his face and words, drowning without complaint- and nobody has ever bothered to think about that with more than a passing thought. 

This time, though- it isn’t going to be those three-months, not for Peter.  _ Hell fucking no.  _ He knows how to identify the guise the moment it fronts, the way Wade’s expression twists into that iconic, awful veneer- and God forbid, he’s figuring out how to shatter that veil if it kills him. This time around, he’s going to do things right- because for once in his life, Wade deserves to have someone see him. 

_ (But you should probably do it outside, before the minimum-wage high schooler shittilates themselves on the job.) _

So Peter lets Wade guide them outside, knockoff Mexican dining in tow. At the very least, Wade wasn’t wrong about the weather- it’s actually quite nice outside, with the sun shining in all the right spots, and just enough of a breeze to prevent overheating. Together, they seek out one of these spots, the best one (and one where nobody can see Wade’s lifted mask)- which ends up being perched upon the parapets of an old, sullen library overlooking the Atlantic. The grooves in the concrete crenels have been filled out with grime and wear, but sitting on the merlons provides a comfortable enough experience. Although the building itself is, for lack of a better word, drop-dead ugly (one of those gritty red-brick abominations made to last for a century instead of look even remotely appealing), the panorama of the ocean is particularly photogenic. There’s an analogy in there, somewhere, Peter knows it- but he’s too caught up in the view, and the sadness, and Wade’s sudden renewed blabbering to care. 

“So then I was looking up what the rat’s name was, right, because I  _ know  _ it’s not fucking ‘Ratatouille-’” he chatters on, just as he had before- like he  _ hadn’t  _ escorted himself out from restaurant on account of his face being too unpleasant, and roughly three minutes ago at that. His mood, Peter thinks, switches mostly at will- but not wholly. The real feelings- the self-image issues, the self-hatred- those things still linger, but Wade nudges them along like a shepherd with a cattle prod, as if letting them remain is a flaw in itself. 

Apparently, nobody seemed to question the earnest of that- or if he even does it on purpose. 

Well, everyone except Peter- who has decided he’s sick of people treating Wade less than shit. He’s tired of watching people stand around and give him these vile glares, tired of watching mothers herd their children off in the other direction as soon as they see Wade walking their way. He doesn’t want to stand by and watch Wade just shrug it off like it doesn’t impact him, like he doesn’t avoid every mirror he sees (and yes, Peter means every mirror- he doesn’t even look through reflective building panes when he’s towing along on Peter’s webs). Peter  _ really _ just wants to take every single person who’s done Wade wrong, and kick them where it hurts- over and over until they understand that Wade _ already _ hates himself to make up for the rest of the world, and he doesn’t need more weighing in on his shoulders. 

Though, in the end, it’s simply against his moral code to straight-up beat anyone who spits at Wade, or treats him bad for his face, so he sucks in a breath and does the next best thing. He cuts Wade off, no planning, no overthinking, and hopes for the best (sadly intercepting the climax of whatever spiel he was so vehemently pent about).

“You’re more than your face, you know,” Peter tells him, his words drawn out and unsure of themselves, but earnest nevertheless. He’s not used to reassurance… okay, well, he  _ is,  _ he has to reassure people all the time (superhero, remember?), he’s just not used to reassuring Wade. The guy always seems so stalwart, so closed off to empathy with any sort of honesty behind it. Peter’s always been waiting for an invitation to console him, but the way Wade handled those Taco Bell employees made him realize that, just maybe, he doesn’t  _ need  _ an invitation.

No, what Peter needs is a  _ break-in. _

“I think you hate your face too much. I think you hate  _ you  _ too much.” Peter goes on, squinting at his half-eaten mess of chicken-queso-whatever. He’d squint at Wade, but he doesn’t want to see the hesitant, bewildered look that Peter knows he’s recoiling with. “You always beat yourself up. You think you’re irredeemable even when you’re trying to redeem yourself. You just- I hate how you never said anything- about the stuff you were dealing with, and all. You think being sad is some sort of burden, and it’s stupid, because you’re not.”

Wade doesn’t reply, which is the worst thing Peter could have imagined aside from him just up and ditching. Instantly, he feels every nerve in his body fire off at once in an uncouth fit of horror- so he hastily scrabbles for a wrap-up, desperate to put a cork in that iconic  _ you-fucked-up  _ dread sprawling leniently in his chest.

“I never knew how much you tried. I wish I realized earlier,” Peter finishes abruptly, his words too fast, and clunky as ever. It’s also immediately followed by Peter shoveling the remainder of that chicken-queso-whatever into his mouth, effectively gagging himself with Taco Bell, just in case he feels tempted to spew anything even stupider. This is something he regrets the moment he starts to chew, because chewing brings also the remembrance (and experience) that his anxiety wrings awful amounts of nausea unto his poor trachea. One bad decision after another, his situation is no longer a time bomb, but rather a cluster-fuck of itty-bitty gunpowder mounds detonating themselves in serrated bursts. With each burst is another urge to spit half-chewed chicken-queso- _ fuck-Taco-Bell-supreme  _ over this ugly red brick library straight into the motherfucking Atlantic regurgitates itself into Peter’s brain, and maybe he shouldn’t have said anything at all, maybe he should’ve just kept his stupid trap shut instead of thinking he could fix things, and-

One more time, Wade takes the leniency to intercept Peter’s thoughts. Not by words, though. In fact, it’s totally nonverbal, (which is a miracle in and of itself, but…) he’s _ leaning against him _ . Head on Peter’s shoulder, quieter than ever, leaning and resting with the ( _ god damned stupid _ ) burrito set aside. It’s the gentlest, most affectionate thing Peter has ever seen Wade do, aside from the way he chats with Ellie, and it’s happening to him. Wade trusts him enough to show this sign of submission- and not the faux, doll-faced submission he reveals to anyone he pisses off- it’s authentic, genuine vulnerability, quiet and earnest and completely real. Wade’s being real with him. It’s just like before, really, except there are fewer boners and more shitty Mexican restaurant purchases. In a moment, he feels every nerve in his body, every ticking batch of C4, calm down to an inept rumble at the base of his brain. 

After about a minute or so, Peter feels more content than ever before, letting Wade lean on him as the sun sinks under the Atlantic. 

He doesn’t actually know how much time passes until Wade finally breaks the silence. It’s after sundown, he knows that much, as his gaze upon the scenery has switched from a sun-struck ocean expanse to silent, moonlit docks lining the shore’s banks. For a very long time, the only thing he hears is the humming of street lamps and the raspy inhale-exhale of Wade’s breathing, right up to when that inhale-exhale breaks in lieu of Wade’s actual voice (which is arguably even raspier). “Does this mean you’ll go on another date with me?” he inquires, shockingly soft, but with an even more surprising hitch to his tone that almost,  _ almost, _ makes him seem scared of the answer Peter will give him. “Because- I don’t know- I thought this was a pretty good date. Usually, when I tell my ratatouille story, it’s never been a good date, or- like- whenever I tell my other stories, too, actually? I usually just have bad dates. Can we go on another date? I think I’d like dating you.”

Peter tries not to go pink as he snorts into one cupped palm, all while shaking his head in uttermost disbelief. “Yes, moron, we’re going on another date,” he tells him as flatly as he can, which isn’t very much, because he’s still grinning like a moron. 

It’s not like he should be embarrassed, though- Wade’s reciprocating the smile with just as much vigor. 

Then Wade’s leaning forward. 

Peter’s eyes go massive as Wade draws ever closer, tantalizingly slow, tilting his head midway through in an angle that can only mean one thing. One fast-paced, incredible thing. One lovely, beautiful, might-be-too-soon kind of thing that Peter’s not sure he’s ready for yet (even if he  _ was  _ willing to let Wade wreck his shit earlier today- the adrenaline was muddling his brain, alright?). It was just the first date, this is going too fast, isn’t it? You aren’t supposed to kiss on a first date. Spur of the moments are just that, but this was pre-planned, and there are moments to think, and Peter is definitely fucking thinking. Then again, maybe he isn’t  _ totally _ opposed to it, since he doesn’t actually pull back, just feels a certain twinge in his suit (maybe their next outing should be a shopping spree for jockstraps, he still fucking needs one), and watches with those huge, full-moon eyes, all up until Wade draws up a hand and-

“You have something on your nose,” Wade tells him cheerily, swiping away a blotch of queso with the pad of his thumb. No kiss on the lips- not even a kiss on the cheek, or forehead, or  _ anything _ \- he just wiped some dried Mexican nacho-cheese off his nose in what has to be the most self-satisfied and lurid voice that Peter has ever heard. He stifles yet another distorted noise from the back of his throat, and wipes the place where Wade had brushed his thumb over, just as Wade himself continues on in that voice like rusting silver-bells: “Nobody wants to smudge their mask with crusty Taco Bell cheese. I think a thank you is necessary, and would be thoroughly appreciated.” Then he cackles,  _ hard _ , in a laugh so entertained that it has Peter realizing in an instant- Wade knew exactly what he was doing. 

_ (And, okay, so maybe he is in love with the guy, that doesn’t mean he can’t get irritated by him.) _

“You’re paying for the next date,” Peter informs him suddenly, a hum interwoven in his voice as he lifts himself from the merlon he’s perched upon. 

Wade gives a noise of what’s supposed to be protest, but it’s so flamboyant and eager that Peter knows he’s more than fine with it, a sort of ‘well, that’s what I get’ tangible in his joy. After that, he takes another moment or two to soak in the scenery ( neither of them do much work on the coastline) before joining Peter’s side with his mask still hitched. That mottled, scarred, ugly-to-99%-of-the-populace face gets more comforting and lovely every time Peter sees it. 

“Shall we?” Wade purrs, holding out one gloved hand for Peter to take. “Fortunately for you, I’ve got a ride home.”

Peter takes that hand without a second thought, and- even though they banter the whole way home- he’s glad he took it. 

_ (Besides, it’s nighttime, nobody can see that awful Deadpool-flavored buggy anyway. Even if it is colored in every saturation of sin.) _

“Are you gonna put out next time we hang?” Wade inquires the instant they reach Peter’s apartment complex, swapping their topic abruptly from buggy to aggravating flirtation, and grinning in a way so overtly smug that the sarcasm is impossible to overlook. It’s a joke, they both know it is, but Wade gets elbowed anyways as Peter clambers out of his abhorrent mistake on wheels. Nevertheless, Wade laughs through it, no matter if they’ll bruise or not, his smug smile softening into something genuine and happy as soon as their jokes and banter turn into ‘see-you-soon’s and ‘I-had-fun’s. 

That soft smile… Peter really does like it, especially when he sees firsthand how earnest it can be. The way it’s almost sheepish in nature, like he’s revealing some deep secret that he only trusts with his closest friends, brings forth a sense of trust that Peter hasn’t felt in years. At first, that sort of intimacy seemed scary to Peter. Now he just wants to see that smile more often.

It doesn’t occur to Peter until after Wade’s drove away that he doesn’t even know where Wade’s driving to.

_ (Does Wade even have a house?) _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> when will i finally write the horny? who knows. i dont. planning shit is for suckers. i either do it on a whim or screw myself over


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wade and Peter go on dates. Peter doesn't treat him like a charity case.

The second date is to an aquarium, where Wade tries climbing into the seal enclosure.

The third is Wendy’s. Wade practices sign language at the cash register. The lady can’t understand it. 

The fourth is to Macy’s to look at lamps, and the fifth is to Ashley Home Furniture… to look at lamps again. 

For their latest date. Wade takes Peter to see a hockey game. 

A kid’s hockey game. 

Like, a toddler-level youth hockey game. 

He hounds the referee whenever he makes a bad call, gifts Peter a crocheted Spider-Man ski-hat during halftime, and has him sign the kids’ helmets at the end of the game (yes, they wore the masks). After that, he takes them out for milkshakes, using a wrinkled coupon he claims he found in a McDonald’s bathroom trash can. The milkshakes taste mediocre, and Wade demonstrates how he can shoot the dessert from his nose whilst they’re still in the parking lot, which is just about as disgusting as it sounds. Finally, he drives them home in that tacky convertible from Hell, rambling along mindlessly about tiger-fish and cookie-cutter sharks, or whatever other mildly interesting things he discovered on CNN, all while he squints them through street lamps to Peter’s apartment complex. 

It really _ should’ve _ been a shitty date. Hell,  _ all  _ of them should be shitty dates. 

It wasn’t. None of them were. 

In fact, Peter can’t think of a single moment where he wasn’t smiling, not even when Wade had fired milkshake from his nostrils (which was admittedly a much more horrified smile, but a smile nonetheless). Yes, the whole thing- all of the things- were inexpensive and almost aggravatingly unromantic, but that’s what Peter signed up for. Wade simply isn’t a romantic person; any attempt at his wooing someone is littered with irritating pet names, potty humor, and bundles of what Wade likes to call “fourth-wall breaks”, which have always been more cause for alarm than they were for swooning. He can be sexy when he wants to be, sure, but flirtation and clever innuendos are a far cry from legitimate courtship and chivalry. At the very least, Wade finds rom-coms entertaining with both a genuine earnest and under eighteen layers of irony- but even at that level of inability, Peter’s pretty sure Wade’s incapable of recreating any of the amorous scenes. He’s just not that average sort of charming- the ones you see in films or books, or even that backwater bullshit from E.L. James’ rough drafts. Actually, he’s not  _ any _ sort of charming, really. It was probably Weapon X’ed out of Wade’s vocabulary. 

But, again, that doesn’t matter. None of this upsets Peter, because lovey-dovey in a way that’s not smeared with smugness and sarcasm- it’s just not what he wanted. What he  _ wanted  _ is Wade, all of Wade, and now he’s having the time of his life getting it. Yes, a toddler hockey game is one of the dumbest outings for a date that Peter can manage to fathom, and yes, the milkshakes were kind of shitty. The whole point of it is that Wade somehow manages to  _ make _ all those mediocre, dumb things fun, to make it worth every last minute of their time, to have Peter keep liking him all the same, even  _ after  _ he shoots milkshake from his nose like it’s his personal blessing from God. Hell, Wade has six-toned skin like a chameleon caught in a house fire and puts himself on watchlists like it’s some sort of scratch-off travel map, and somehow Peter  _ still _ wants to get in his pants. That attraction in and of itself probably makes Peter just as delusional as Wade is, even  _ with _ the two-dozen-something personalities rattling around in the guy’s head. 

Delusional enough to want Wade to stay the night, at least.

They’re pulling up to the complex lot, now- dark, empty, slightly chilly- with only the ramblings of Wade’s newest discovery (the topography of the Sahara) permeating through the stillness. Peter is content to lay and listen, slumped lax against the leather while he’s driven to the curb. The seating is probably the sole redeeming quality of Wade’s vehicle, but it does its job well; Peter is able to focus on both Wade’s tangents  _ and  _ the divagations of his own mind, without the interception of a foreign, uncomfortable variable. Though, there’s definitely a skew in his focus- as much as he likes Wade’s chattering, he finds himself honing in on his own stream of conscience more than anything else. He doesn’t want to call it selfish, though, considering it’s only  _ one _ thought that’s really impacting him- and that thought, of course, has to do with Wade. 

_ (Because why wouldn’t it have? Wade’s already managed to dismantle Peter’s other capabilities- from overthinking to straight-up running- so it’s not like multitasking is off the table.) _

At least the thought isn’t sexual. Actually, it’s a far cry from that- it’s surprisingly docile. Well, for it’s docile for a couple (are they a couple?) that spends their dates at youth hockey games and empty Arby’s parking lots, at least. That thought, that burning question writhing in the depths of Peter’s mind, is merely a persistent, unsatiated  _ where does Wade live?  _ Which, again, would be an unorthodox question to think for any couple aside from the superpowered ones. 

Or maybe it’s unorthodox for them, too, and Wade’s just a mystery in his own caliber.

Peter  _ does _ know about the Deadhut- or, at the very least, has an inkling of a snapshot of it- but that house is somewhere rotting in San Francisco, and, in Wade’s own words, “brings memories on about 200 levels of  _ hell no _ , when I can take around seven on a good day”. It’s probably a worse idea to bring that deep-sea abomination of memories back up than it is to implicate that Wade’s homeless, so Peter makes the most of his vantage point when they stop at the curb. Besides, if things go haywire, his apartment complex  _ is  _ less than ten feet away- it’s a cheap move for sure, to ditch when the mood gets antsy, but he deems it a last resort to same himself the self-hatred. Once that fallback is established, Peter waits until Wade pauses to catch his breath, and then forces the words out of his mouth before that spiel about the Sahara can resume. 

“Wade,” Peter starts slowly, lamely, but just strong enough that it gets his attention, “where do you drive to after you drop me off? I mean, I’ve never seen your house. You don’t live with Ellie, obviously, so…” 

Wade’s expression has turned pensive, hesitant, and the question actually gets him to shut up for a few moments (which is both impressive, and probably not a good sign). Finally, he speaks, but his words are rather sullen- “Personally, I like to just call it _in-between places. _Those places usually being my not-quite-apartment with unpaid rent- and, uh, out back of Taco Bell. Sometimes a bench or two. I like the Taco Bell the most, I think.”

It’s a whole lot of words to say he’s homeless. 

It’s not like it’s surprising, per se. Now that Wade’s (mostly) given up being an assassin for hire, his income has predictably gone down the drain. Aside from food scraps on nonlethal merc operations, Wade has no real way of getting cash. God knows his ego would never let up for some dumpster fire job letting  _ his  _ track record man cleanup duty. It’s frustrating, his stubbornness- how he manages to refute pity and consolidation, while  _ also  _ sabotaging himself from sheer self-loathing. More than frustrating, though, or saddening, or even pathetic- it’s  _ concerning.  _ It’s a red flag, Peter knows, when you’re starting to worry for the man that is- again- literally i _ ncapable _ of death, but it’s not like he’s got any way to switch it off. He’s not like Wade, he can’t push away his emotions so easily, he’s never been able to. 

Which is when Peter realizes his look of pity must be obvious to Wade, and sure enough, his next snark confirms it: “What, you gonna make a charity fund for poor old Deadikins? I don’t  _ need _ my own place. I’m a free spirit, or whatever the hell they call it- I’d lose it in a month like it was my God-given duty to.” The words are sharp, irritated, and sting even worse when Wade revs the engine into gear, sending a smattering of fumes out from the exhaust pipe. 

Maybe it’s the contaminant pumping out from that pipe that prompts Peter’s next statement, considering it receives no prior debate, or even acknowledgment. He’s always had thoughts put into sentiments before he says them, an internal prosecution of stupidity prior to speaking any piece. This, though, this comes suddenly, as if a foreign force had taken ahold of him and twisted his mouth to move out from Peter’s accord. That might be a cause for concern, how he’s shifted from planning every word to every vowel and consonant, all the way over to simply spouting shit without any prior weighing, or sanity check, or prior  _ anything _ \- but right now, he’s got an even more pressing debacle to deal with the consequences of. Namely, the synonyms that spill from his mouth and refract themselves in his head like a laser light in a house of mirrors: “What if it wasn’t yours? I mean, what if you just stayed with someone else?”

Wade has gone on to give him another long, strange expression, though it’s a step up from anger at the very least. His foot lifts from the pedal and the exhaust fumes halt, and Wade’s head ducks like he’s mulling about it. Peter, on the other hand, isn’t sure whether to feel frightened or excited- mostly, he just feels like an idiot who says things he shouldn’t and never grasped the concept of relational boundaries. 

_ (Man, Wade really is rubbing off on him, isn’t he?)  _

“You’re saying you want me to live with you?”

Peter is quick to interject, albeit not saying ‘ _ no’  _ because it’s- like- light years too late for that, and the way Wade is staring at him makes it almost seem  _ hopeful;  _ instead, he says “There’ll be rules and everything. You’ll have to pick up after yourself and do dishes. And, um, pets aren’t allowed unless they’re small, so- oh, that’s not one of my rules, that’s just the landlord’s-”

“You want me to live with you,” Wade repeats. This time it isn’t a question, and his eyes are so huge that, if Peter dejected him now, he’d never forgive himself. Once Wade continues, it goes on slowly, like he’s in some sort of haze, “I didn’t- I mean, I thought you were just going to try to get me to a shelter, or something. That’s never been- never mind. Do you want me to- I mean, should I park the car?”

“You should probably park the car,” Peter responds. He now only realizes how red he’s getting, and it’s times like these when he’s really,  _ really  _ grateful for the mask emotion-wise. It’s easy to figure out the scope of most emotions, sure, but the furious heat in his cheeks is something you’ll never be able to witness unless you yank off the mask. It could be the blood rushing to his face instead of his brain that convinces him to go on, “You should definitely park the car.” 

Wade goes and revs the engine right up again, but this time it’s got a different purpose. Peter watches him turn the width of the lot and veer into a space, thankfully managing not to scratch or dent the cars lining either side of him. There’s a tension pressing heavy on the air, but for once, it’s not of a sexual caliber. In fact, Peter doubts it’s even of a  _ romantic  _ caliber. It’s sheer intimacy, a trust built upon trust, not quite friendship in lieu of real, shocking closeness. Wade’s never been open to people bearing witness to his vulnerability- hell, that’s the understatement of the fucking year; Wade would rather eat an entire fucking jet plane than spill his guts out to a psychiatrist. No doubt this spreads to his choice in roommates, considering he’s had  _ one _ in all his years of being Deadpool, and she was  _ blind.  _ To see Wade be so eager, so earnest about staying with Peter,  _ and  _ to this extent? Well, for one, it’s completely heartbreaking, because all Peter’s done for Wade is pique his interests and believe in him with some semblance of consistency. On the other hand, it’s the tiniest bit endearing. The progress, how far Wade’s managed to come from where he once was- and in his own volition, even- it’s enough to make Peter’s heart twist in the best way possible. 

It twists even further as Wade fumbles to pull his keys from the ignition, and then once more as he hooks his foot trying to sling over-side the car door. Peter’s pretty sure he busts a ventricle at the awkward, yet wonderfully earnest laugh Wade gives him as he rejoins his side. He fiddles with the keys, a Spider-Man keychain flitting and jangling between two gloved fingers, just discreet enough to be amusing. For a moment, Peter’s mind drifts, smiling simply at that keychain, at Wade’s (big, calloused) hands, and at the shadows they cast on the cold pavement beneath them. Then the moment passes, and Peter keeps staring. He phases out a little further, then some more, and Wade’s key’s stop jangling in his hand. 

He finally snaps out of it when Wade clears his throat, which is a noise that’s likely louder than he intended it to be, because he coughs to cover it up midway through. Unfortunately, the cough is just as loud, so he just buries his face in his hands and lets out a muffled “Should we go inside? I like running circles around the homoerotic undertones here, but I think my glutes are getting a deep freeze.”

Peter fails to hide a smile as he pulls off his mask, stuffing it into his pocket and nodding his head. “I wasn’t expecting, uh, an impromptu roommate, so it might be dirty.” He warns him, pressing his key to the entrance and waving them inside. 

“Please,” Wade snorts, ducking his head to avoid hitting it on the doorway’s upper frame, “you haven’t seen dirty until you’ve witnessed the shitholes  _ I’ve  _ managed to occupy. I’m pretty sure half of them became biohazards before I moved out.” The words are joking- or at the very least, Peter hopes they’re joking- but nevertheless, Wade supplements it with a hasty “Not that it’ll be like that this time, I’ve mended my ways. I’ll be a good roomie, cross my heart and swear on my Spider-Man undies,” 

Peter lets Wade press the elevator button, politely informs him which floor they’re on (the eighth, ha-ha, eight legs), and responds, “You have Spider-Man undies?” as if there’s some sort of legitimate doubt about it. 

“Several pairs,” Wade confirms proudly, his voice bolstered while the elevator rises. “I think I have more Spider-Man undies than I have normal ones. Which is an oxymoron, because most of my normal ones are Captain America themed.” 

Peter snickers into his hands once more, leading a haughty Wade to his apartment door as he rummages for his keys. When he notices the blank gaze flitting from his outfit to his face (half-suited and in the confines of his apartment, never a good combo), he’s quick to elaborate on his nonchalance. “It’s late, and this wing’s basically  _ all  _ little old ladies who don’t really care what I get up to, so I don’t really need to worry about- uh- wearing the suit” Peter reassures meekly, although it’s absolutely; the few run-ins he’s had with neighbors usually consist of a cheery ‘I love the costume!’, or ‘I didn’t know Halloween was today!’. It’s a pretty adorable relief, and would be even more so if it weren’t also extremely paranoia-inducing. 

“Damn, you parked your ass in a permanent knitting corner?” Wade coos, rocking on booted heels. “Slap my ass and color me jealous.”

Yanking the door open (it always had a bit of a stick), Peter checks Wade with his hip before waving him inside the apartment. It’s not particularly cleanly, but it’s definitely not packed to the rafters with junk, either. A pizza box and an empty coke can left on the floor is the highest extent of the filth, which Wade seems to be impressed by all on its own. Not to mention the fact that his furniture is rather nice, since the old ladies he lives adjacent to have what they like to call “special connections”. That is, they get him some discounts in thrift shops and whatnot. It makes it look homely- but in a good way. The wood and fabric are well-worn and broken in nice enough, so it feels like it has some sort of life to it. In any case, it’s a much better deal than the new, stingy pieces of wood and plastic that hurt your nose from packing fumes, all overpriced to ridiculous levels of unaffordable. Not to say that the furniture Peter’s got has no smell, because that would be a pretty shitty lie. It smells like cigarettes and old people, and a little bit like coffees and mornings if you’re really honing in on it. It can actually get kind of aggravating at times, but Peter would take grandmas over narcissistic minimalists any day of the week. 

Wade seems to think so, too, since he takes one look at the place, then one long sniff, and says “Smells like Great Grammie Wilson. She smoked ten packs a day and I miss her more than George Lucas.” Then, not a moment later, Wade launches from the doorway onto the worn polyester sofa. The cushions creak underneath his bulk, but he manages not to break it with what Peter’s sure is sheer luck. “This’ll work just fine, Websy. More than fine, actually. God, I love a good couch.”

Peter was actually going to ask if Wade wanted to share more than an apartment- maybe a bed, too (they were dating, after all)- but he looks so thrilled about his current situation that Peter doesn’t want to risk a damn thing. Besides, if Wade wants to get all touchy-touchy, chances are he’ll probably just climb into bed with him anyway. He knows well enough that Peter will kick him if he oversteps his bounds. 

“You aren’t going to brush your teeth, or anything?” he asks Wade instead, to which he receives a muffled grunt of offense. 

He sticks his head up from a couch cushion he had buried his face into, already looking disheveled with contentedness, with a hint of irritation from Peter’s hygiene requests. “ _ Yes _ , I’ll brush my teeth. Give me five minutes to relish in my stupor.” 

Peter rolls his eyes, and then does it again when he’s sure Wade is looking at him. “If you say so. I’m heading to bed, then, I’m exhausted. Unlike you, I  _ don’t  _ sleep until- like- three in the afternoon. Don’t break any of my stuff or play the TV too loud- oh, and no 4 AM ‘jam sessions’, or you’re getting kicked from the premises, like, yesterday. Roger roger?” 

“Loud and clear,” Wade chitters back, lifting his mask simply to flash Peter a grin. One of the real ones, too- not the fake, waxy smiles he offers for media attention and the aggravation of his foes. It’s one of those real, special smiles that Peter’s come so far to see and love and appreciate over the course of these dates. He finds himself smiling back, and for a moment- even despite the worries, even despite the concerns and fear and the knowledge that Wade’s got his ups and downs- Peter finds himself smiling right back. Just as earnest, just as happy, just as real. It feels like they can actually make this work. 

“Hey, Wade?” Peter says slowly, thoughtfully, softly.

“Mhm?” comes the muffled, dazed response. Peter waits for a moment to gain his full attention, and eventually, it comes. Wade lifts his head from the cushion once more, and says in a livelier manner, “What’s up, buttercup?”

“I’ve really liked these past few- uh- outings.”

“You can call them dates,” Wade supplies.

Peter nods, face burning up a tad- no matter how familiar the prospect is, it still manages to cinch his attention when said aloud. “Dates, then. These last few dates have been really good. I’m glad you’re trying to be better, it’s… you’re doing good. You’re good.” 

Once again, Wade is silenced for a long time. This time, Peter doesn’t overthink it. Wade deserves to know.

Finally, he says “Thanks, Peter,” with all the vigor of cotton fluff. It’s short, simple, soft, and just the right type of raw that lets Peter know he got through to him. He has a way of changing his voice when he gets emotional; the singsong Canadian twist at the end of his statements totally dissolved and the rasps considerably densed. It’s depressing, really, when you realize that’s how he  _ would  _ sound if it weren’t for the superimposed excitement and cheer of everything he does. But then, even deeper than the solemn undercurrent, is the tiniest sliver of hope lining those tentative rasps, the smallest seed of optimism in an ocean of God knows what. Peter doesn’t know how, and he doesn’t know why, but he really is thankful that he’s part of why that seed started to sprout. 

“I’ll see you in the morning?” Peter asks him.

Wade nods his head. His expression is honest, and so are his eyes. “Like the goddamn sun. Can’t get rid of me now, Petey-pie.”

Peter’s posture sinks in relief, and he exhales a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding. He sends him a smile and a wave, then heads to the bathroom to wash up for bed. 

_ (Why would I want to get rid of you?)  _

**Author's Note:**

> fakeout bitch!!! you have to WAIT if you want the fuck. this is my first fic in a long while, so if you have any concrit, ideas, or suddestions, please let me know!


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